I love you, my Angel

Summary:
The night Edward 'died' but he wasn't alone. There was someone beside him, begging him to stay the whole time, pleading with him not to leave her in the darkness of her world. AU.

Notes:
Sooo....This can be a one shot....or it can't be a one shot....u choose.... I got the idea from listening to The River Flows In You and looking at an old fashoned picture hanging on my wall of a flower surounded building with lots of windows and a horse buggy outside....but I'm not really sure how that ended up as this....hmmmm...

9. Chapter 9

Alice babbled the whole way home from school; her excitement was almost overwhelming. She said often in the last few hours that I’d been talking—or rather her talking and me nodding—and she had seen Jasper so many, many times in her ‘dreams’, as she’d called them, and now she was about to meet him.

I decided that if the situation had been different, Alice and I would’ve been excellent friends. Friends forever, maybe.

Her chatter lasted until the last second when I turned off my car. I glanced over at her still form, surprised.

Alice’s face was split down the middle with the largest grin I’d ever seen.

Even before the engine cut off, Alice had managed to fling herself from the car. “Jasper!”

I tried to see this from her point of view. To be able to see someone you loved for so long, knowing it was coming eventually, but having to wait, and then finally finding that opportunity…I guess I would’ve been close to her state. In fact, I was almost there. I would only be here for so much longer before I was on my way to Edward…

I quickly followed Alice, right behind her. She had let herself in, but had stopped in the door way, still smiling. She must’ve done it out of common courtesy, I decided. Jasper appeared at the top of the stairs, face shocked and still.

I stood awkwardly, watching them both. Alice’s face changed almost immediately as she first saw Jasper. Her eyes grew wide, calm, and open. Her body relaxed, a look of immense relief flowing across her whole form.

“Um, Jasper this is—”

“Alice,” She cut in, smiling timidly.

I had never seen someone so calm and full.

“I’ve been looking for you a long time now, Jasper.” Alice murmured, flittering her fingers around.

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, ma’am.”

Jasper’s happily ever had just started.

A real, honest smile graced my face.

It was coming, again. The rumors flashed around town in a flurry of tears and fear. It had hit and made the news paper before, but now, once more, the Spanish Influenza was back. God had returned to call home more children.

I scanned the newspaper heading, my stomach tightening in a horrible recognition. For so long, on and off, death had been the headlines of the world; Death was making a comeback. I folded it under my arm and grabbed up the bag of groceries that mother had sent me to get.

“Bella,”

I turned around at Edward’s voice. I smiled, pulling the paper better under my arm. No need to make him get worrisome. He was all too good at that.

“Ready to go?” He asked, smiling my favorite smile.

I nodded, wrapping my thin coat around my shoulders tighter. Fall was really settling in. The cold had only started up in the last few days. It nipped at everything, everywhere all the time.

Edward opened the door to the carriage and ushered me in. It was somewhat warmer inside, but not much. As soon as Edward was in with the door closed, I snuggled closer, sighing when he wrapped another blanket around along with his arm.

“Comfortable?” He teased.

I laughed softly, content. I only hummed in response.

Then the coach started up, jerking to a level speed.

I felt Edward twist, suddenly, but slowly. I had my eyes closed, trying to imagine that I wasn’t cold, so I didn’t bother to reopen them. He’d say what he was thinking.

I heard something unfold, like paper maybe, and silence for a couple of long seconds. “Did you read this?”

Lazily, I opened my eyes. They blinked a few rapid times when I found his hand holding up the Harold I’d been reading earlier. It was open to the exact page I didn’t want him to find. I decided to stay calm, as to not worry him anymore than he already was going to be, “Yes, I did. Did it fall out of my bag? Did anything else?” I tried to distract him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” His brows were knitted together in worry.

I sighed, sitting up a little straighter. “I didn’t think it was anything for you to worry about, really.” I tried lying. Actually, it was only a half lie. He didn’t need something new to worry about—he’d practically made a hobby of worrying—but knowing him, he would worry anyways.

“This is serious, though. Did you read it all?” His arm left my shoulder and continued to unfold the rest of the paper. His expression grew more and more concerned as he continued down the fat column of dark print.

“No, but—”

“More than one fifth of the world’s population…” Edward began to mumble to himself.

I sighed, settling down deeper into the crook of Edward’s arm; he would be busy fussing for the whole ride home—there was no sense trying to distract him now. I closed my eyes.

Finally, after several minutes of the clip clop of the horses and the sound of the town fading behind us, Edward let out a loud, airy sigh. I staid still, knowing he’d speak when he was ready.

He never did.

The longer the silence lasted, the more impregnated it became.

Finally, unable to not say anything about Edward’s strange behavior, I sat up, “Edward…are you worried?” I watched his face, watching it for any change. It was tense yet defeated almost at the same time; it didn’t belong on the face of a seventeen year old.

“Yes—of course I’m worried. I’m worried about you; of father and mother; of your family. But it’s here; I can’t out run it—I wish I could, though. I’d carry you with me and hide you away from it”—Edward’s eyes were blazing, the green tinted with a small amount of agony—“and never let it touch your beauty—but, alas, I cannot, Bella, so I’ll stay here and hold you tight with me.

“I didn’t leave when war was calling, and I’ve no plans to now.”

War. I’d felt so immensely guilty and unbelievably relieved when Edward had made it perfectly clear that he was not leaving off to go romp around in the bloody fields of battle. He’d told me flat out that if I had never come along then he very much would’ve gone. His life had been boring before, said he, and that he would’ve been able to run away.(Apparently, he'd had simular problems with his mother trying to find girls for him that he had absolutly no interest in whatsoever) It had already been a plan when the rumored war had bloomed.

He now refused the idea vehemently.

At the talk of death, so close and suddenly so real, I snuggled closer to Edward; I was almost sitting on his blanket swathed lap. “No one’s dying tonight,” I murmured, resting my head in the crook of his neck.